CHAT CHAIRMAN’S

A VERY WARM WELCOME to the latest club magazine and a belated Happy New Year to all. Well, as most of you know by now, January to March is my busy period at work and not much going on in my life apart from work stuff only stopping for food and bathroom!

However, I have been working on my own Sunbeam Lotus as and when I can and am currently using it as a final template for the ethanol proof fuel line kit we will soon be able to supply. I have two volunteers waiting for trial fit on a S1 & S2 just to make sure it will be as easy as I am trying to make it be for everyone.

I also wanted to be sure the replacement fittings were 100% up to the job and that I was doing the right thing by crimping on the ends so members don’t have to – pressure testing then came up ! The only fittings to utilise a jubilee clip is the fuel filter which sits on the chassis leg just before the SU pump, which is a service item that gets replaced anyhow. I’m trying my best to get this done as quickly as I can, but my workload until the end of March is mental although this is when I hope to have them ready to ship out.

Mark Higman has arranged events efficiently (but not effortlessly) and it looks like 2023 will be another superb year for club events. Please head onto Mark’s write up and firm up the dates in your diaries. I’d like to thank Mark for his efforts. The first year is never easy, then it kind of works better once you get a year into the events position.

As I write this, the NEC Restoration Show will be upon us and I thank Mark and the rest of the committee for arranging this all, particularly that this is Mark’s first time at organising this and has managed to get us a great spot and despite no members offering up their cars, Mark has sourced plenty for the stand.

So back to my teaser photo of a distributor. I have secured a pre-programmed replacement distributor which can be programmed with a custom ignition curve (via Bluetooth phone app). I will be testing this on my own car. This will also work with any ignition kit you may have installed, such as MSD or Lumentition. This distributor has the added benefit of being an immobiliser and will not give a signal unless the mobile phone of the driver is present. Pretty cool bonus. Of course, you don’t need to have the feature active if you don’t want to and you won’t need to program the ignition curve unless you need to tweak it a bit.

Mats have been selling well. But by chance I have found another supplier who could be a little cheaper but has offered custom embroidery on the mats at an extra cost. So those of you who want to wipe your shoes on a mat saying SUNBEAM LOTUS or AVON or anything else you want embroidered, get your wallets out. I will get some samples by the next issue of the club magazine.

PERRY C. ANTONIOU CHAIRMAN MEMBER NO. 750

YES, I KNOW, I sent an email to all members some time ago, explaining that price increases by our printer (plus almost certain increases in postage coming very soon) had led the committee to question whether we could continue to post hard copies of the mag to everyone on the mailing list, or make digital copies more widely available, or reduce the number of mags we produce, or increase membership fees, or we continue as now & absorb the increased costs? I also suggested that we might commence any changes with this issue, well here we are with a “normal” printed version for everyone who normally took this option!

In fact we simply haven’t been able to fit in a committee meeting in the last month or two, so the discussion is still undecided, but here’s a brief analysis of the actual returns I received from members :- party website as now, but this still needs to be confirmed.

With all this information the committee still need to make a decision, but another indication from the returns is that probably getting on for half of the emails I sent out went to spam, & were probably never even read (also some of the email addresses on the membership records are incorrect – every member has an opportunity to check this once a year on renewal – so please let me know if the address is incorrect – membership@sunbeamlotus.com)

As I type this there are still 55 membership renewals nearly a month overdue from the January list, & by the time this mag is delivered I will have sent out email reminders (hoping that the message is actually read!) If you are one of these, then please get it done asap, so that I’m not involved in further unnecessary work. Thanks very much.

Current membership is 359 (full members –that doesn’t include joint / family members) & a warm welcome to all the recent new members. Hope to see you at a Club event in 2023.

So, just over 30% of the membership actually indicated that they were ok to receive an electronic version of the mag only.

A number of those members who wanted to continue with the printed magazine actually stated that they would be prepared to pay an increased annual membership fee in order to cover the higher costs.

Part of the potential change was also that mags would be available to read (& stored) on the Club website, & not on an ad laden third

On the money front the bank balance continues to be healthy, but I am aware that we should be restocking some of the more regularly required parts, so please let Richard Blackburn (parts@sunbeamlotus.com) know of whatever it is that you need. There are minimum order levels required for a lot of what we buy, & unless we have these then we cannot place orders.

As always, best regards to all, & thank you very much for you ongoing support.

Dave Merlane (No.34)